Date:  Jan 19 2001 00:39:04 EST  
From:  "Songs of Praise" <elton@songsofpraise.org>  
Subject:  Songs of Praise - new revival play  


Hello everyone,

Remember last October Larry Holder, Steve Israel and I wrote a new song
called "Come Fill My Heart"?  Well, this was just after Dan Zigler and I
started working on a new "revival" play.  In fact, this song was written
for the play.  After much effort and anticipation, we have finally
released the play, and have named it "Come Fill My Heart"...

    http://songsofpraise.org/comefill.htm

This is very different from our previous two plays ("Resurrection Song"
and "The Perfect Gift").  "Come Fill My Heart" is evangelistic in nature
and designed to be presented over a series of five nights.  The play has
an act for each night along with an associated sermon.  Each night has a
different theme but they all tie together to tell a moving story
involving four main characters:

- "Reverend Rolland" is an older preacher who runs an inner city Christian
outreach center.
- "Pastor Thomas" is a young, inexperienced preacher, fresh out of
seminary, who is coming to serve at the outreach center.
- "Juanitta" is a young prostitute who frequents the street corners near
the outreach center.
- "Wilma Weatherly" is a financial support of the center, an outspoken
critic of Juanitta, and ultimately her friend and mentor.

This is a highly emotional story of redemption.  I know you will all be
blessed by it.  Most of the credit for the play goes to my friend Dan,
though I helped write parts of it.  As I mentioned in an earlier
newsletter, the character Juanitta is patterned after a young lady who our
church has been helping escape from a life of drugs and prostitution. 

So grab a box of tissues and dive in!  It takes a while but you don't have
to read it all at once.  The songs for the play are all written, but some
of the recordings and midi files are not yet completed.  These will be
ready shortly and an accompanying CD/playbook will be made available.

There's one more bit of technical news.  We have started making "Finale
Viewer" files available for our songs on the web.  You must download a
plug-in from Coda software to view these files, but they have two big
advantages over gif files: (1) the print quality is much better and (2)
you can transpose the song to any key.  This is already available for
several songs, including "Come Fill My Heart".  Larry Holder and I will
slowly introduce these files to other songs.

Yours in Christ,
Elton Smith

http://songsofpraise.org
http://mp3.com/songsofpraise